31.01.2010
Zola desperate for McCarthy to boost relegation battle
West Ham's Italian manager Gianfranco Zola before the English Premier League football match between West Ham United and Blackburn Rovers.
West Ham manager Gianfranco Zola hopes South African forward Benni McCarthy will provide a major boost to his struggling side's bid to avoid relegation.
Zola's team drew a blank in Saturday's 0-0 draw with Blackburn at Upton Park and remain too close to the Premier League's bottom three for comfort.
With new co-owners David Sullivan and David Gold willing to back Zola in the transfer market, the Italian has lined up a 2.5 million pounds move for McCarthy, who is out of favour at Blackburn.
Zola expects the deal to be done before Monday's transfer deadline and is confident the former Porto forward will fire the 15th placed team away from the drop zone.
"It looks like it is done and next week he should be coming to train with us," Zola said.
"I do not know the terms yet, but they have told me the deal is done. He should be available for the next game.
"Benni will be a threat in the last third. He is a player who can score goals and he will be a very good help for us."
Sullivan and Gold are both life-long Hammers fans and their buy-out of a controlling interest from Icelandic bank CB Holding settled what has been a turbulent period.
Zola added: "They have given us stability and maybe some more players to strengthen the team, and that is a good thing."
Blackburn had the better chances of a drab game, with Morten Gamst Pedersen's free-kick hitting the crossbar before substitute Jason Roberts failed to beat Robert Green when clean through with 15 minutes left.
Green also pulled off a brilliant save to deny Martin Olsson, while Mark Noble appeared to handle Gael Givet's shot before it was cleared off the line by Carlton Cole.
Zola added: "I was expecting us to create a bit more quality, but we were not able to do that.
"The tension caught us a little bit, everybody was nervous and we could not express the quality we needed to break them down.
"But I take it as a good day, because this point means we step up the table."
Rovers boss Sam Allardyce added: "We are disappointed we have not turned a very, very good second-half performance into a victory.
"We feel a little hard done by, but in the main we should have been a bit more clinical in front of goal and would have won."
Source: © 2010 AFP - Glyn Kirk
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